It just dawned on me that a week from today, I'll be heading to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival. Good thing I remembered.

I'll be signing copies of the book during each of the four sessions. Please stop by and say hello (and, ya know, buy copies of the book for everyone you know. It's a great, inexpensive gift.)

The Festival bookstore will be located in the middle of the hall near the Beer and Food Pavilion. I'll be there:

Thursday 6:00 - 8:00
Friday 6:00 - 7:00
Saturday Afternoon 3:00 - 4:00
Saturday night 6:00 - 7:00

The Brewers Association has lots of new attractions this year, and as always, there will be plenty of beer. (I'm hoping this time I'll even get to taste some of it.)

Just for the record, and for what it's worth: Last night during the debate, Governor Palin appeared to credit Ronald Reagan for coining the phrase "shining city on a hill."

The phrase is not original to Reagan, as he himself noted when he used it during his "Farewell Address" of January 11, 1989. Indeed it's one of the most-quoted phrases in American literature and politics and rightly so.

The quotation originated in "A Model of Christian Charity," a sermon John Winthrop delivered in 1630 shortly before he and his fellow Puritans disembarked from their vessel Arabella and settled in North America.

I've been using a PC for 28 years, and about half of these shortcuts are new to me. (Although, hmmm, 28 years ago Windows and e-mice didn't exist. So, okay, now I don't feel quite so dumb.)

Make sure to read past Pogue's blog entry to the reader comments. There are hundreds of them, all of them useful. Yes, okay, who has time? But maybe he will write the book!

The McCain campaign has announced its new strategy for the waning weeks of the campaign:

" . . . McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds told FOX News they would continue to point out Obama's 'associations that are questionable and point to his character and his judgment.'" (*1)

But didn't McCain says that his campaign puts "country first"? Sounds more like his campaign is resorting to character assassination. How does that put "country first"?

And can a person's "character" really be reduced to occasional encounters with people who live in your town or city? Isn't "character" the result of a lifetime time of deliberate choices? Isn't "character" the sum of our ideas, our actions, our hard-won wisdom?

If McCain truly wants to put "country first," perhaps he ought to ponder the words of Dr. King:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." (*2)

*1: Source: McCain campaign spokesperson Tucker Bounds speaking on Fox News, October 4, 2008. Emphasis added.

*2: Martin Luther King, "I Have A Dream" speech, August 28, 1963. Emphasis added.

In July, the New York Times began a series that examines reading in a wired world -- how/why/if reading is changing, and the implications of those changes.

Part Two in the series ran today. You can read it here. Here's Part One. And here's my comment on Part One.

As I noted in my first piece, I'm a reader and have been since I was four. But it's not lost on me that what constitutes "reading" is changing and that people who grew up with computers and the internet think about reading differently than someone my age. (Old.)

It's rare that the presence or absence of one person makes a historical difference (I said "rare," not impossible). But I think that the death of Fred C. Miller in 1954 altered the course of American brewing.

Miller was aggressive, ambitious, smart -- all on a grand scale. He was the first beermaker to come along in decades who showed the potential to go head-to-head with the Busch family, particularly Gus Busch, who ran A-B from the late 1940s until the mid-1970s.

Miller became company president in 1947, and over the next few years, he shoved, pushed, prodded, and otherwise steered his family's brewing company not-much-of-anything into the ranks of the top ten.

But in late 1954, he died (in a plane crash) -- and Miller Brewing lost its way. As Miller faltered, A-B solidified its position as the dominant player in American brewing.

Had Fred Miller not died, I believe the course of American brewing would have turned out differently: Fred Miller would have transformed his family's company into a formidable powerhouse. He would have challenged A-B's dominance. He would have been able to command-and-direct in a way that, for example, Bob Uihlein was not able to do at Schlitz during the same period.

Put another way, in the 1950s, Gus Busch met his match in Fred C. Miller. Things might have turned out differently had Miller lived.

I can't prove that, of course, but hey -- what's all that research good for if I can't express an informed opinion.

Anyway -- consider the shifting brewery rankings and brewery outputs from the mid-1940s on:

1945:
# 1 brewer: Anheuser-Busch (3.7 million bbl.)
# 16: Miller (729,000 bbl)

1946:
1: Pabst (3.3 million bbl)
17: Miller (644,000 bbl)

1947:
1: Schlitz (3.9 million bbl)
20: Miller (806,000 bbl; Fred C. becomes company president)

1948:
1: Schlitz (4.2 million bbl)
19: Miller (911,000 bbl)

1949:
1: Schlitz (4.6 million)
11: Miller (1.3 million)

1950:
1: Schlitz (5 million)
8: Miller (2.1 million)

1951:
1: Schlitz (5.7 million)
6: Miller (2.1 million)

1952:
1: Anheuser-Busch (6 million)
5: Miller (3 million)

1953:
1: A-B (6.7 million; A-B would hold onto number one rank into next century)
8: Miller (2.1 million; Fred's one mistake: A strike during this year shut down his only plant; his major competitors all had multiple plants and could keep brewing.)

1957:
1: A-B (6.1 million)
10: Miller (2.3 million)

1958:
1: A-B (6.9 million)
10: Miller (2.3 million)

1961:
1: A-B (8.5 million)
10: Miller (2.7 million)

1962:
1: A-B (9 million)
10: Miller (2.8 million)

1971:
1. A-B (24.3 million)
6: Miller (5.2 million; Miller now wholly owned by Philip Morris, which dumped billions into the company.

1972:
1: A-B: (26.5 million)
8: Miller: (5.4 million)

1975:
1. A-B (35.2 million)
4: Miller (12.9 million; in February, Miller introduced Miller Lite)

1978:
1: A-B (41.6 million; about what Miller made in 2007!)
2. Miller (31.2 million)

1980:
1: A-B (50.2 million)
2. Miller (37.3 million)

The rest, as they say, is history. By c. 2000, A-B was nearing 100 million barrels a year; Miller hovered around 40 million. In late 2007, Miller's new parent company, SABMiller, and MolsonCoors, the parent of Coors Brewing, announced they would merge their North American operations in a joint venture called MillerCoors.

As I窶况e noted before, I窶冦 a fan of Thomas Friedman, and in particular his call for a 窶徃reen窶? economy. He argues that the climate crisis is real, it demands our immediate attention, and that repairing the crisis will, can, and should stimulate the American economy. Going green will produce jobs and fix the planet. (*1)

The New York Times recently ran a piece about one aspect of the shift to a 窶徃reen窶? economy: Silicon Valley venture capitalists are investing money in 窶徃reen窶? enterprises designed to transform American energy use, demands, and needs.

It窶冱 worth reading, if only because, as the author points out, too often we think about fundamental economic change/repairs in terms of government leadership, whether through federally funded research or through subsidies.

As this article points out, however, private investors aren窶冲 waiting for government. They窶决e already investing in this new engine of economic growth.

It窶冱 a fascinating piece, but of course I'm a historian, and I think both it and Friedman窶冱 plea for a green economy will make more sense if we can place them in historical context. Ditto for the current meltdown and various other problems plaguing our country and the planet.

So, let's take a tour of American economic history.

After the American Revolution and up to about 1870 or so, Americans focused on settling and transforming the continent: Moving west to the Mississippi, and laying out towns and farms. Land speculation. Building canals that could carry grain and other raw materials. Manufacturing on a small scale. They also began laying the groundwork of a metals- and machine-tool based manufacturing sector.

In the late nineteenth century, starting about 1870 (give or take), the pace of 窶彿ndustrialization窶? accelerated. There are lots of reasons: Inventors developed a way to make steel in large quantities. Foreign investors dumped billions into the American economy. The pace of railroad construction accelerated. Etc.

Historians describe the late nineteenth century as an era of a 窶徘roducer窶? economy: Economic growth (and jobs) came from making things like railroad ties, engines (first steam and then internal combustion), machine tools, electrical wire. Yes, Americans also manufactured fabric, shoes, food, and furniture, but the fuel for growth was the manufacture of basic producer goods, the kind of stuff needed to build an infrastructure.

Next time: the shift from a producer economy to a consumer economy.

[As always, I'm breaking this into multiple parts not so I hope you'll come back (although I do!), but because I'm aware that most people's days are broken into ten-minute increments. Ya got ten minutes today. You'll have another ten tomorrow.........]

*1: See in particular his new book Hot, Flat, and Crowded.

In the early 20th century (around 1900), the economy shifted to what historians call a 窶彡onsumer窶? economy: The engine of growth came from making goods purchased directly by consumers: New technologies like refrigerators and radios, as well as makeup, perfume, soap, cars, movies, curtains, and plumbing fixtures.

But in the mid-1920s, an economic meltdown began in western Europe in the mid-1920s, and soon spread to every part of the globe.

The event we now call the Great Depression landed in the U.S. c. 1930 in the form of massive numbers of home and farm foreclosures, bank failures, and bankruptcies.

In 1932, Americans elected Franklin Roosevelt as president, hoping he would fulfill his promise of a 窶廸ew Deal窶? to repair and rebuild the economy. The New Deal was designed to 窶徘rime the pump窶?; to put money back into people窶冱 pockets so they could get back to buying shoes, furniture, and clothes. Its programs can be divided into two main groups (this is a rough generalization).

One set of programs rebuilt and strengthened the structural underpinnings of the economy. Examples include Social Security and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), both of which are still with us.

The FDIC, for example, protects money people have in bank savings accounts. If the bank fails, you still have your money, and you can participate in the consumption that keeps the economy going. Social Security was originally designed to provide a way for older Americans to retire with an income, so that even after they stopped working, they would spend money and contribute to the consumer economy.

The second set of programs were aimed at the nation窶冱 immediate crisis: Unemployment. The logic was simple. When businesses fail, they lay off workers; those workers can no longer spend money on things like shoes and furniture.

So the federal government began using tax revenues to create jobs.(*1) The jobs were offered and created by New Deal agencies such as the Public Works Administration, the Works Progress Administration, and the Civilian Conservation Corps.

These agencies hired Americans to build dams, repair bridges, paint murals, landscape public parks. People went to work every day, earned a paycheck, and thus were able to buy food and other goods. And the projects produced tangible results: new roads, new dams, and so forth.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, for example, generated thousands of jobs for workers who built a massive hydroelectric system that brought electricity to millions of rural Americans who didn窶冲 have it.

Next up: the American economy after the Great Depression.

*1: That, by the way, is why the president and Congress moved so quickly to legalize beer even while Prohibition was still in effect: brewers would contribute huge amounts of badly needed tax dollars.

So Iceland's financial system collapsed over the weekend and the Icelandic government went hunting for a quick loan.

Fifty years ago -- hell, ten years ago -- it likely would have turned first to the U.S. for the money.

Not now. So who did it turn to?

Russia.

And this country -- and the world -- have reached a historical turning point. The political alliances that have guided global politics since World War II are crumbling. The president of the U.S. may still be the "leader of the free world," but it may no longer matter.

McCain? Obama? Time to crawl out of the slime-pit and tell Americans what your plan is for dealing with this new reality.

Terrific piece about four Oregon breweries in the current issue of Oregon Business Magazine. If you're interested in the shape and history of craft brewing, it's worth reading.

Tip o' the mug to Jeff Alworth at Beervana.

Nice piece in the Wall Street Journal about beer fests and the current state of affairs in brewing.

As I've said before, I've given up trying to figure out what can be read "free" and what can't at the Journal's website, so you're on your own trying to read it.

Thanks in part to the New Deal (and to natural economic cycles), in the second half of the 1930s, the economy began to recover.

The eruption of World War II accelerated the recovery process. War is typically good for the economy and in this case it generated full employment and effectively ended the Great Depression.

Because of wartime rationing and shortages of just about everything, however, there weren’t many consumer goods. Instead of spending their paychecks, Americans saved them.

When the era ended, Americans began spending their savings. There was pent-up demand for just about everything, especially housing, cars, and basics like furniture and appliances. The baby boom also fueled consumer activity: millions of kids needed new schools, school buses, teachers, books, shoes, food, etc.

But Americans also enjoyed full employment -- and big paychecks -- thanks to the Cold War. Millions of people worked in the aircraft industry, for example, and in munitions, and in highway construction. (The national interstate system was originally intended as a defense project: if needed, the government could use the highways to move weaponry).

In the 1970s, this “industrial-consumer��? economy began grinding to a halt. European and Asian nations devastated during WWII had recovered and rebuilt, thanks to funds provided by the U.S. Marshall Plan, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. These new economies rested on highly efficient industrial systems that could compete with and often surpass American manufacturing.

At the same time, the oil-production nations gained political clout (in part because European colonialism ended) which allowed Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich nations, to gain more control over their resources. (The U.S. economy, of course, was dependent on that oil. If you want to know when, why, and how our current oil-terrorist woes began, study up on U.S foreign relations in the 1970s.)

The result? In the 1970s, and with alarming speed, the U.S., industrial production faltered as companies shifted manufacturing overseas. The structural underpinnings of our economy began to give way.

As the industrial-consumer economy faltered in the 1970s, many people wondered: What will replace it? post-industrial America look like? What's next for the U.S.

We know the answer now: The "electronic economy." In the late ‘70s and in the 1980s, Americans built a new economic engine on a foundation of electronics and “computing.â€?

The new economy generated millions of jobs in new research and development -- intellectual activity. It also generated a burst of manufacturing: Back in those old days -- the 1980s -- we American workers built chips, hard drives, plastic casing and so forth.

I was just beginning my career as a historian back then, and I remember wondering how long this new foundation would last. When would the e-economy go the way of the producer and consumer economies? Even then, it was clear that many of the new economy’s jobs would go overseas.

Asian countries, for example, quickly took over the work of manufacturing the hardware. And in the past decade or so, India and China have latched onto large parts of the intellectual work.

Here’s a trivial but telling example: The aesthetics aspects of my two websites -- the parts you see if you visit either one of them -- were designed by a company in Boston. But the “gutsâ€? of both sites -- the code specific to my sites -- were built in Bangalore.

These days, writing code is the equivalent of the manufacturing of the sort that Americans lost to Asia back in the 1970s. But China and India have also snared large parts of the foundational intellectual labor needed to expand an e-economy.

For example, ten or fifteen years ago, China sent its best engineering and science students here to learn. Those students then went back to China to spread their knowledge. Now, the Chinese don’t need to come here. They have built a world-class university system and are now generating much of the intellectual foundation of the wired economy right at home. (And unless we Americans start taking education more seriously, we’re gonna lose all the intellectual work to them.)

In short (or long), the structural underpinnings of our national economy have shifted and changed over the past 150 or so years. We lay a foundation, and then it changes or, as has been the case recently, other countries "catch up" to us.

Here’s one way to think it: Imagine the economy as a pie. During the historical heyday of each type of economy, whether consumer, producer, or wired, the U.S. owned most of the pie. In the 1980s, for example, we owned maybe three-quarters of the newly emerging wired economy. We generated the intellectual foundations of computer, and built much of the hardware.

Over time, however, other countries grab more and more of the pie. Asians now manufacture and assemble most of the hardware.

So what’s the point? The wired economy is dwindling, just like the producer and consumer economies did earlier. Moreover, the “fakeâ€? economy of banking, mortgage swaps, subprime loans, and so forth has also proved to be, well, fragile. As more than one economist has pointed out in the past few weeks (and years), mortgage swaps don’t produce tangible goods. (*1)

So any sensible person ought to be asking: What’s next? What will be the “foundationâ€? of our next national economy?

*1: It’s worth noting that during the recent weeks of economic chaos, “expertsâ€? kept referring to Wall Street and the “realâ€? economy. The implication was that the Wall Street economy was “not real.â€? Experts also refer to the current economy as a “debt economyâ€?: borrowing money is what keeps things going. Not consumption. Not production. DEBT. That’s real depressing. No pun intended.

The "wired" economy is dwindling. So what's next? Where do we find the next foundation for the American economy?

Answer: Re-imagining, re-inventing, and re-shaping our daily infrastructure to create a "greener" world.

Which brings me back to where I started: Thomas Friedman and that piece in the New York Times about the "greening" of venture capital. Our economic future lies in an investment in the ideas and technology of a 窶徃reen窶? economy. We can repair our economy by repairing the planet.

Imagining a new infrastructure will require two basic activities: First, intellectual activity in the form of research and development. Someone has to work out the details of the ideas that will provide the solutions to the climate crisis. Someone has to figure out how to mass produce hydrogen fuel cells, for example, or create wind turbines scaled to single homes. (I'm making up these examples.) (*1)

Second, it will require things: solar panels, hydrogen cells, wind turbines, and a ton of stuff that hasn窶冲 been developed yet.

Both activities will generate jobs. Lots and lots of jobs.

But only if we get off our asses and start mobilizing what窶冱 left of our intellectual infrastructure and begin investing in this new economy.

It won't be easy because we Americans are (a) masters of the short-term solution and it's easier to create bailout plans than it is to change the way we think about our daily lives; and (b) no doubt we'll spend years arguing about whether government should or should not take the lead. But as I noted in an earlier post, democracies are slow. You want it done fast? Call 1-800-DictatorsRUs.

But if we don't do it, I guarantee that some other country will.

So. Time for us to get busy. Time for us to start electing leaders who understand that the world has changed and we MUST change with it.

As a side, but related note, the historian in me realizes that this might be the historical moment that launches a new political party.

The last time a "third" party succeeded was in the 1850s, when a broad cross-section of Americans dedicated to stopping and/or eliminating slavery joined forces under the umbrella of the new Republican party. The structure of our system makes it all but impossible for a third party system to function, so the Republican party survived only by draining support from the old Whig party.

That was the last time an upstart has managed that feat. But if ever there was a historical moment when a new party could elbow either the Democrats or the Republicans off stage, this is it.

*1: But as noted in the NY Times article with which I started all this, someone also has to fund that activity. I can see it now: In twenty years, Wall Street will collapse again because investment houses will have sold debt-swaps based on green R&D.

I'm heading out for Denver and the Great American Beer Festival.

As I noted earlier, I'll be signing books at all four sessions. If you're in the building, stop by.
Thursday: 6-8
Friday: 6-7
Saturday afternoon: 3-4
Saturday evening: 6-7

I'm back from Denver and will post a report about that soon -- but this is a quick drive-by entry about the A-B InBev deal:

At least one analyst now rates the deal as a 90% certainty, which is precisely where I'd pegged it last week. (InBev is borrowing the cash to make the purchase, and as I think we all know, banks everywhere took a serious hit last week. No one wanted to loan money to anyone for anything.) (Hey. If I rated the deal as 90% certain, and a Big Shot Analyst agrees with me, maybe I'm in the wrong business!)

And as expected, Carlos Brito has announced that Dave Peacock will serve as A-B's new president. This is good news for everyone at A-B: Peacock, who is currently VP of marketing at A-B, is respected, admired, and liked by A-B employees and by the larger brewing industry.

So -- onward and upward.

Okay, everyone and his/her mother has weighed in on the GABF and I doubt I've got anything original to offer -- but, hey, that's never stopped me. (For anything you could possibly want to know about this year's festival, hop over to beerinator's rss feed and have at it.)

So let's start with the bad and the ugly:

GABF is wall-to-wall humanity packed into a gigantic convention center (translation: a big concrete warehouse). Roughly ten to twelve thousand people at a time, all of them talking (or, more accurately, shouting because that's the only way to carry on a conversation). Most of them drunk.

It's not the greatest place in the world to drink beer. BUT: if you don't mind crowds or noise and you like seeing people dressed in funny costumes and hats, well, hey, it's fabulous.

So what's good about GABF? Those same people, of course!

First and most important, the GABF is the result of the hard work and dedication of the folks at the Brewers Association, especially Cindy Jones and Julia Herz and their staff, all of whom manage to stay calm and cheerful amidst what is an astonishingly stressful situation. I thank them for making it possible for me to participate in the festival.

Also good: those same loud (often drunk) festival-goers.

Any writer will tell you that the second-best part of our job is talking to readers (the first-best, of course, being the creation of the books themselves). And any writer will tell you that we writers spend most of our time staring at the wall trying to figure out what to say next and we welcome the rare chance to get away from our desks and, ya know, actually TALK to people.

So I am grateful for the opportunity to meet and talk to the people who stopped by the festival bookstore to say hello. Many of you had already read the book, and for that I am grateful. And about sixty or so of you bought a copy while I was there. And for that I am also grateful (as is my bank account).

When I wasn't at the GABF itself, I was at one of the many "media" events held at various locations chit-chatting with the beer people that I rarely see in person.

I got a chance to talk to and drink beer with Bryce Eddings of beer.about.com and the chronically interesting Jay Brooks.

I also saw Rick Lyke, who has a bunch of GABF photos and reports up at his blog (and who looks and feels great after his encounter with prostate cancer earlier this year). He spent part of his time in Denver raising money for the cause at the festival's Pints for Prostates booth).

It was a great pleasure to see two dear friends, Julie Johnson Bradford (who managed to avoid being decked by a drunk photographer) and Daniel Bradford of All About Beer magazine.

I also had a chance to spend time with two of my favorite beer people, the incomparable James Spencer and Andy Sparks of basicbrewing.com. As near as I can tell, they never turned off their camera and microphone and single-handedly recorded every damn moment of the four-day event and interviewed any and every beer person who would stand still -- all of it fodder for their amazing "radio" web- and pod-casts.

I met Rick Sellers, from Pacific Brew News, who was there on behalf of Draft magazine and who has a ton of festival coverage at his blog.

I also met Brian Yaeger, whose new book, Red, White, and Brew, just came out. He's on a cross-country road trip promoting the book (which is itself about his cross-country trip to explore American brewing.)

Thanks also to the great folks at Anheuser-Busch, especially Mike Bulthaus and Tom Shipley, who hosted A-B's launch of Budweiser American Ale.

Last, but not least, one of the highlights of the GABF (at least for me) is the brunch hosted by Jim Koch of Samuel Adams Brewing and Boston Beer Company. Every year, BBC sponsors two homebrewing contests, one for BBC employees and one for anyone who wants to enter.

Jim invites the finalists and the media to the brunch. We get to taste the contestants' beer and watch as Jim announces the winners of each contest. It's a lovely event (and the food is fabulous).

Anyway, you get the drift: GABF is less about the beer than it is about the people. I'm glad I went.

Again, for photos and way better reporting than you'll get from me, check out the rss feed at beerinator's website.

Denver was not all joy and light. On Friday, I was walking to an event with some of my beer friends. One of them wasn't saying much and he looked upset. I asked him if he was okay. "I'm just worried," he said. "The economy."

I knew what he meant. We're all worried and frightened. When I was in Denver I sense a mood of -- finality. That once we all headed for home, well, it might be awhile before we see each other again. The economy is so unsettled. Life feels so --- fragile. The world feels fragile.

But in this dark moment, I hope all of us, separated by miles, will be united in hope and courage.

That's what will light the way.

Who is your choice for Comic Character-in-Chief? Cast your vote here, at the Comics Blog at washingtonpost.com.

I'm still dithering -- Calvin? Cow? Pogo? Hmmmmm..........

PS: While you're there, click on the link to the "New Adventures of Queen Victoria." And for more info on Joe the Plumber, take a look at this.

Turns out I'm not the only one who loves David Gergen! Who knew?? He is a "handsome baked potato" indeed.

That voice. That calm. And I nearly swooned during the post-analysis on Last Debate Night. CNN's debate-watch poll numbers were rolling in and they were, um, not good for McCain. On every measure, viewers preferred Obama's "debate" performance.

Anderson Cooper (who is himself more than a bit swoon-inducing) turned to Gergen and said, in effect, "Okay, the McCain campaign has tried everything and nothing works. So what do they do tomorrow?"

And Gergen looked up at Anderson, gazed at him for a few seconds, and said "Beats the hell out of me."

Ahhhhhhhh. David . . . Let me count the ways.

In his warm-up remarks just before the debate began, Bob Schieffer mentioned how much he missed Tim Russert. (*1)

Then last night at the Al Smith dinner, Senator Obama also took a moment to remember Tim.

I'm glad they did. I've truly missed Russert. He was having the time of his life during the long primary season. Oh, how he would have loved this post-convention campaign.

Tim, you're gone too soon.

*1: I watched the debates on C-Span, which covers all the intro stuff that takes place before the debate itself begins.

I’m about as middle-of-the-road as it’s possible to get, probably because I’m a pragmatist.

I understand, for example, that politicians make promises in order to get elected. I also know that presidents don’t write laws governing taxes, immigration, or education. Congress does. A president can cajole, urge, plead, and lead, but in the end he/she can only sign or veto legislation created by Congress.

So when I ponder presidential candidates, their policies matter less to me than do their character and integrity. And that’s why I’m not voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

I could rattle off a long list of examples, but I’ll stick to one: Sarah Palin.

As near as I can tell, McCain didn’t pick Palin (he wanted Joe Lieberman). Instead, his advisers foisted Palin on him.

I gather the rationale was something like this: A female v-p would appeal to disgruntled Clinton supporters. A female v-p choice would signal “change��? and thus undercut Obama’s main message. Even better, Palin had run for governor as an “outsider��? maverick who was opposed to corruption. She was young.

At no time, however, did McCain or his advisers think about who would best serve the nation. I gather that the question was not “Who is best qualified to sit in the White House if something happens to McCain?��? but “Who is the most politically expedient?��?

Yes, presidential candidates must use expedience as a criteria, but smart ones don’t use it as the only criteria. In this case, however, his campaign chose his running mate for self-serving, cynical, selfish reasons.

But I also wouldn’t vote for McCain because -- Sarah Palin might end up running the country. And I don’t believe that she is interested in anything except what’s good for Sarah Palin. Moreover, the idea of her sitting down to negotiate with, say, the president of Iraq or Russia or France -- well, the idea is too frightening to contemplate.

Put another way, McCain’s choice of running mate speaks volumes about his character and integrity -- and it doesn’t say anything good.

But it also tells us about how McCain might behave if elected.

Many of McCain’s long-time friends say they don’t “recognize��? the John McCain who is now running for president. That he’s become a nasty caricature of his former self. Political observers on both sides say that McCain is not “comfortable��? with his campaign’s negative tone.

Okay. Fine. But if he doesn’t like it, then why is it happening?

Who is in charge of the McCain campaign? John McCain or a well-paid political operative? And if it’s the latter, then what does that tell us about who will be in charge of a McCain (or Palin) White House? John McCain (or Palin) or a well-paid political operative?

I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out the hard way.

Every negative has a positive: In my previous post, I explained the negative: Why I won’t vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin. Now for the positive: I support Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Here’s why.

I am a middle-age (55), white, middle-class woman. And there’s one thing I know for certain: The future does not belong to me.

There’s no big shock there in that realization, I might add. When people land at the half-century mark, reality hits, because to turn fifty is to experience one’s mortality. The future no longer seems infinite, the way it did back when I was, say, thirty or forty.

I hasten to add that I don’t feel “old��? and I’ve certainly not given up on life. Far from it. I am fit and reasonably healthy and ready to tackle whatever life brings in whatever time I have left. But the future is not mine anymore.

Here’s another reality: The planet has changed in the past ten or fifteen years, and has done so with breath-taking speed.

You know what I mean:

Electronic media have changed the way human beings interact and communicate. Economies and cultures once separated by vast physical distance are inextricably interwoven. Long-standing political alliances have unraveled, morphing into new ones that would not have existed fifty years ago. Attitudes toward the United States have changed, and not necessarily for the better.

I could go on. You get the drift.

So what has the one -- my age -- got to do with the other -- the pace of change? And what have both got to do with Barack Obama?

This: We Americans are racing toward End Game.

We’ve been rolling toward it for thirty years. We’ve had warning after warning about political turmoil in various parts of the world. Warning after warning about our dependence on oil, about climatic disruption, about our addiction to debt and affluence.

In my opinion as a historian, we’ve run out of time. We can’t keep dodging our self-inflicted bullets.

At the rate we’re going, in fifty years we will be a third-rate nation. (Think I’m wrong? The Brits thought they were invincible, too. In the space of about 30 years, they slipped from Masters of the Universe to Also-Rans.) (Absolutely no offense intended to my son-in-law or my several very dear British friends.)

Okay, so mistakes were made. The question is: What are we doing to do about it? Look backward to the “good old days��? of the Cold War and Ronald Reagan? Or look to the present and the future, neither of which bear any resemblance to those “old days.��?

Put simply, this isn’t the time for old people like me to be running the show. It’s time to turn it over to people who grew up in a multi-culture, multi-racial, post-cold-war, television- and computer-based world. People who understand that what happens in Beijing and Bangalore matters as much as what happens in Washington and on Wall Street.

People like Barack Obama, who are willing to challenge “the way things are done��?, and who envision a future that does not depend on the past.

Here’s a small but telling example of Obama’s willingness to look forward instead of backward: He and his advisers planned a campaign strategy around fifty states, rather than just a handful of “blue��? states. As a result, he’s now running even with, and in a few cases ahead of, McCain in states that are supposed to “belong��? to the Republicans.

Consider Virginia. Democrats wrote that state off decades ago. “We can’t win in Virginia,��? they said, “so let’s not waste any time or money there.��? Never mind that the demographic makeup up Virginia had changed dramatically in the past half century. Democrats like Bill Clinton and Al Gore didn’t bother. They assumed that the past was a good predictor of the future.

Obama rejected that assumption. Instead, he decided to find out for himself just how “red��? Virginia was. Turns out it’s a healthy shade of purple -- so he has spent time and money there reaching out to a new generation of voters who’d been written off by Democrats in earlier races.

Again, that’s a small example, but it’s indicative of Obama’s willingness to challenge assumptions, to think in new ways, to imagine a future that is different from the past.

John McCain’s vision of the future, on the other hand, is rooted in past mistakes and old idealogies. That was evident in the first presidential debate, when he constantly and insistently referenced the past rather than the present or the future.

Indeed, as I watched that first debate I wondered what people under the age of, say, 35 made of McCain. How many of those younger viewers knew who Gorbachev is? Or Kissinger or Eisenhower? For that matter, how many knew who Ronald Reagan was?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a historian. My mission is to persuade Americans that history is relevant. I don’t plan to abandon my mission.

But as a historian, I believe that the past is different from the present. And if that’s true, then it follows that the future can be different from -- and better than -- the present.

Barack Obama is the person to lead us into a future that we must -- WE MUST -- shape before it destroys us all.

I also support Barack Obama for another reason: Because I understand the power of hope.

Yes, I know that many people reject Obama’s calls for hope and his message of “yes, we can.��? Many people believe that those words are naive or, worse, empty rhetoric.

Not me. I understand the power of hope deep in my gut. I am living proof of hope’s power. Over and over and over again in my 55 years, I’ve changed the course of my life; I’ve dug deep and reached high. I’ve used hope to conquer despair.

Even now, at middle-age, I believe in the transformative power of hope. I believe the future can be different than the past or present.

I don’t believe in hope because Obama asked me to. I believe in Obama because I believe in hope.

I hope you do, too.

Geez, too bad Colin Powell isn't running for president. I'd vote for him faster than you can say "hanging chad."

On the other hand, maybe I'm glad he's not running for office -- because if he were, he might not be so willing to speak sense. I mean, have you noticed how often the process of campaigning turns candidates' brains to mush, so that they often end up spouting inane bullshit instead of sense?

Anyway -- three cheers for Powell for saying aloud two things that I had hoped at least one of the presidential or vice-presidential candidates would say:

First, as he noted in an interview this weekend, yes, taxes are a way to redistribute wealth.

Say it's a nice sunny day and you and your family decide to visit a local park. You get in your car and pull out into the street -- which is paid for with tax dollars. You stop at a traffic light at an intersection. Yup, paid for with tax dollars. You take a walk through the park -- you guessed it, paid for by my tax dollars and yours.

Do you have kids in school? The buildings, the playgrounds, the desks, the books -- all paid for by tax dollars.

Because that's what we do with taxes: we pay them to a central treasury, at the municipal, county, state, or federal level, and then we redistribute that "wealth" back to each other in the form of streets, parking lots, sewers, water, schools, and so forth.

Second: Barack Obama is a Christian, but what if he WAS Muslim? Big deal. Is there something wrong with a Muslim child believing he or she could be president? Or a senator or a CEO?

Last time I checked, this was still the United States of America (all of it, not just the parts deemed "pro-America" by Governor Palin). And one of the things that defines we Americans is freedom of religion.

I notice, by the way, that no one objects when Muslims pay taxes or vote or die in battle for this country. So why should anyone object if a Muslim wants to run for president? Because, ya know, who's next? No Jews allowed? No Catholics? No atheists?

So -- thank you, Colin Powell, for the audacity of common sense.

I'm totally falling behind in my beer-related posts. Frankly, it's about all I can manage these days to post anything, let alone about beer (and it's probably obvious by now that the presidential campaign is much on my mind.) (*1)

But I want to point out two pieces about beer that are worth reading. Jeff Alworth at Beervana alerted me to them, so tip o' the mug to Jeff.

One article is about the politics of the three-tier/distributor system. (For those just tuning in, Cindy McCain's wealth comes from her family's Anheuser-Busch distributorship, so there's been more than a little print about the three-tier system lately).

The other piece comes from a British blogger and is about beer and "class" politics in the United Kingdom, but is worth reading because the author's point is certainly applicable to the U.S. It's worth reading, as is Jeff's comment on it.

As always, I don't necessarily agree with or endorse the entire contents of either piece, but I'm all in favor of thoughtful expression of ideas. So have at it! And again, thanks to Jeff for the fodder.

Added a few hours later: I'd forgotten that Jay Brooks also commented on the Reason magazine article; you can read his post here.

And Jeff points out that Patrick Emerson, of the Oregon Economics Blog, has also weighed in.

Again, thanks to Jeff for doing his bit to keep me up-to-date. I'm especially grateful to him for tipping me off to Patrick's blog. I'm totally in favor of academic types doing their bit to communicate with us real folks (me being an escapee from academia and doing my damndest to make history accessible to everyone.)

*1: So is my new book. I'm pretty much buried in it, and there are only so many hours in the day, and the meat book gets priority....

Hey all you lovers of Pumpkin Ale (and other seasonal brews): Here's a groovy kind of thing, courtesy of the Brewers Association.

At the Seasonal Beer And Food site, click on the "Browse Seasonal Releases" link for a drop-down menu that allows you to search for seasonal brews by state.

Cool!

I have to admit: I hadn't thought about it. What DO website owners do once their url loses its meaning? As in: what do the owners of savebudweiser.com do now? (Assuming, of course, that the InBev/A-B deal goes through....)

So asks the Wall Street Journal's Deal Journal blog, which you can read here. (Or so I hope. As I've said before, I've given up trying to figure out what's free and what's not at the WSJ's website.)

Be sure to read the comments posted at Deal Journal. Apparently people are STILL arguing over which American beermaker will be the biggest one standing.

So ... the election is just days away and some people have still not made up their minds.

So I'll throw this out there for the undecideds (my attempt, lame though it might be, to get some of them to vote for my guy).

In my opinion, such as it is, Sarah Palin isn't ready to be president. She's not a bad human being, but she's not presidential material. (She certainly may be in eight years or twelve, but she's not ready now.

Palin is definitely a smart, savvy, shrewd politician. She also makes no bones about her ambition.

There's nothing wrong with that, by the way. Many politicians and other ambitious people take care to mask their ambition. But many successful and ambitious people choose the opposite tack: They steamroller others with their self-confidence and sheer will to power.

Again, no problem.

My problem with Palin is twofold:

First, she has no grasp of the nature of the American federal system. She's apparently never read the constitution, and does not understand, or even seem aware of, that that system has three separate branches.

In my opinion, knowledge of the constitution is a bare minimum requirement for holding office in the United States. Bare minimum.

Second: I'm guessing that her ignorance about the basics of the American system of government stems from a complete lack of intellectual curiosity.

I don't mean that she ought to spend her time contemplating Plato or quantum physics or the meaning of life.

But I do think that people who seek power should be able to their agendas and ideas, and when questioned, be able to defend the positions and ideas they express on the campaign trail.

Palin does not appear to have any ideas, other than her own animal, instinctive will to power.

When she's asked a question, what comes out of her mouth is -- mush. It's as if she's memorized a bunch of talking points, none of which contain any content or substance, and when she's questioned about one of them, she rummages through her mental file drawer, chooses the appropriate file and dumps it out of her mouth.

For example (you knew there was an example coming, right?): Palin has criticized Obama for his willingness to talk to the world's leaders. According to her, he plans to, ya know, plop down on the sofa and start chatting, without an "preconditions."

I'm pretty sure Obama meant and means that he wants to engage in substantive, formal discussions with world leaders, and those discussions that will be preceded by a series of diplomatic negotiations.

Okay. Fine. But if Palin is going to challenge Obama on this point, she needs to have some substantive alternative to her (imagined) notion that he's going to talk without preconditions. Right? If you're going to criticize someone, then you need to have something better to offer.

So this week during an interview, Brian Williams of NBC asked Palin a legitimate question.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Gov. Palin, yesterday, you tied this notion of an early test to the president with this notion of preconditions, that you both have been hammering the Obama campaign on. First of all what in your mind is a pre-condition?

PALIN: You have to have some diplomatic strategy going into a meeting with someone like Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il, or one of these dictators that would seek to destroy America or our allies. It is so naive and so dangerous for a presidential candidate to just proclaim that they would be willing to sit down with a leader like Ahmadinejad, and just talk about the problems, the issues that are facing them, that's some ill-preparedness right there.

Palin concedes that Obama needs a "diplomatic strategy," a point on which Obama agrees. But the rest of her comment? Blah blah blah blah blah. There's nothing concise, nothing specific.

Palin hasn't given two seconds worth of though to what she means by "preconditions." For her, it's just a talking point for big campaign rallies. There's no substance, no --- nothing.

Again, that's fine. But if she's willing to throw the words and attacks around, seems to me that she needs to be able to explain what she means by those words and attacks, AND to offer a specific example of what she would do differently.

Another example: Palin rails against "elites," claiming that they're out to "get" her and that they don't understand "real" (presumably "pro") America.

So Brian Williams asked a logical question:

WILLIAMS: Who is a member of the elite? PALIN: Oh, I guess just people who think that they're better than anyone else. And-- John McCain and I are so committed to serving every American. Hard-working, middle-class Americans who are so desiring of this economy getting put back on the right track. And winning these wars. And America's starting to reach her potential. And that is opportunity and hope provided everyone equally. So anyone who thinks that they are-- I guess-- better than anyone else, that's-- that's my definition of elitism.

WILLIAMS: So it's not education? It's not income-based? It's--
PALIN: Anyone who thinks that they're better than someone else.
WILLIAMS: --a state of mind? It's not geography?
PALIN: 'Course not.

That's the best she can do? She uses the word "elite" in every third sentence at her rallies -- and yet, she's clearly not thought about what she MEANS by that word.

If you watch the interview (easy enough to do online) she sighed loudly when Williams asked the question, and paused for a moment, and looked irritated and flustered, probably because here was another member of the elite asking another "gotcha" question.

But if she had THOUGHT about what "elite" means; if she'd articulated a stance on this issue that she brings up so often, well, she'd have had a ready response.

But she doesn't THINK about the meaning of her words. To her, as near as I can tell, words are just tools that she uses to pave her path to power. Palin's "sound and fury" does, indeed, "[signify] nothing." (*1)

Right now we Americans have a lot of problems to tackle. Lots of them.

We need leaders who have thought about those problems long enough and hard enough to have thought of specific, substantive solutions to them.

Sarah Palin is not one of those leaders.

*1: "Macbeth," Act V, Scene V.

I'm a bit late posting a link to this, but it's still worth reading.

This essay, "Farmer in Chief," was written by Michael Pollan and published in the New York Times Magazine on October 9. (Pollan is the author of Ominvore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food).

It's a concise argument for why and how the American food industry matters. Our nation's food policy, Pollan argues, is integral to not our our health and the economy but national security, too. Worth reading.

So about this business of "election day" being just another day.

As we all know, election is just an ordinary day of the week. People get up, get their kids off to school, go to work. Stop at the grocery store. And then try to find time to go vote, too.

In years like this one, when turnout is expected to be high, it'll be even harder that usual for people to find time to stand in line for an hour or two. (Which is what many people are already doing in many states that are holding early elections.)

Some people argue that we should hold elections on the weekend.

I disagree. Let's stick to Tuesday, but let's make the day different from other days. Let's ask Congress to create "Nation Day." (*1)

On Nation Day, banks and insurance companies and malls and doctor's offices and auto repair shops and everything else would close their doors. No school, either (because teachers have to vote, too.)

Just for one day, so that ALL of us would have time to stand in line. So that we have one day -- one day!; that's all I'm asking -- when we have time for a reflection; when we have time to ponder one of our most important duties as Americans.

Sound like too much? Then how about if employers give employees a two-hour break so they have time to go vote. Come to work two hours late, or leave two hours early. Something, anything, so that the average American doesn't have to race around like a maniac trying to find the time to vote.

Worth thinking about.

*1: Let's just not call it a "holiday." Because god knows, if Congress created a voting-day "holiday," the entire purpose would be subverted in the time it says to say "FORTY PERCENT OFF ALL ITEMS DURING OUR ELECTION HOLIDAY SALE!" Or "SHOP EXTENDED HOURS DURING OUR SPECIAL ELECTION HOLIDAY SALE!"

Analysts continue to, well, analyze the InBev acquisition of Anheuser-Busch. Most seem to agree the deal will go through, but there is doubt, and there is apparently growing doubt that it will go through in its original form.

Time will tell, obviously (time, in this case, being sometime in December). Meanwhile, details here and here.

Just got tipped off to a new beer social networking site, mustlovebeer. Think FaceBook soaked in suds and hip with hops.

Thanks and a tip o' the mug to dondon.

While rummaging through the offerings at Politico.com, (yes, I am currently addicted to all things electoral), I ran across this mention of John Hickenlooper, known to beer geeks as the founder of Wynkoop Brewing (and currently mayor of Denver):

Several politics-related pilots are currently in the works—including a reality series featuring Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper—due to the large viewership enjoyed by debates, political conventions and similar prime-time programming in this year’s presidential race.

Well, whatever some network honcho comes up with, it's got to be better than "Real Housewives" or "The Girls Next Door." And who knows? Maybe Hickenlooper and his family are the next Osbornes.

*1: Added a few hours after my original post: How about "The Real Wort"?

Source: The quote is from this article.

And speaking of social networks and beer, I got an email from Shawn Connelly about another beer social site, The Aleuminati.

Shawn is the founder of Aleuminati. He also blogs at beerphilosopher and writes about beer for helium.com. (He also, by the way, shares two-thirds of a name with my brother: Shawn Patrick.)

Aleuminati is gearing up to celebrate its first anniversary (November 12) -- members are celebrating that event by sponsoring a fund-raising drive for Pints for Prostates.

PfP was founded by Solid Good Guy Rick Lyke, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier this year.

Rick came through the ordeal (just saw him in Denver; he looks great!) -- but he realized that he did so in part because of early diagnosis. So he launched Pints for Prostates as a way to encourage men over forty to make regular PSA testing a part of their lives.

You can donate money, too, by clicking on the "chipin" button at Aleuminati's website, or by visiting the Pints for Prostates site.

Anyway, cheers for the great folks at Aleuminati for celebrating their own good news by giving back to others -- and for providing an online forum where beer folks can gather and talk, ya know, beer stuff.

Thanks and a tip o' the mug to Shawn.

Finally, a reasoned and thoughtful analysis of A-B’s new Budweiser American Ale. (No surprise, however, given that it’s Jeff at Beervana who’s the commentator.)

I’ll just toss this into the mix: The “Starbucks effect.â€?

Many people believe and assume that Starbucks has destroyed or will destroy locally owned coffeeshops. In fact, the opposite is true: When Starbucks comes to town, the locally owned shops are not far behind. (*1)

Why? Because Starbucks functions as a “starterâ€? coffee for someone who doesn’t know much about coffee.

The potential customer visits Starbucks because she’s seen the stores everywhere and because the logo is familiar. (That matters when customers are new to a product: they gravitate toward the familiar; toward what they’ve seen in ads or commercials.)

She encounters friendly employees who help her decide what to drink. She goes back again and again. She becomes more adventurous and “upgradesâ€? from plain ol’ “coffeeâ€? to latte with mochawhippedwhatever. (I don’t drink coffee, so I have no idea what any of the coffee terminology means.)

Once she’s become experienced an coffee drinker, she feels more comfortable walking into a “strangeâ€? coffeeshop. She’s not worried about appearing foolish. She’s learned to appreciate coffeehouse culture.

She’s willing, in other words, to frequent that non-chainstore, locally owned coffeshop down the street that she might otherwise have walked past and never entered.

Anheuser-Busch could become craft beer’s Starbucks equivalent. Budweiser Ale may serve an an “entryâ€? beer for people who would otherwise never consider trying a craft beer.

Think about it: A-B owns about half the American beer market. It has the most loyal customers on the planet. Budweiser drinkers trust A-B. Many will translate that trust into a reason to try Budweiser Ale. (*2)

They get comfortable with this newfangled beer and decide “Hey. I like this. Maybe I should try one of those other, “strangeâ€? beers that I see in the grocery store.â€?

Next thing ya know: Bud Ale fans have become -- Left Hand fans or Summit fans or Abita fans.

Stranger things have happened!

*1: I learned about the Starbucks effect in Taylor Clark’s excellent book Starbucked.

*2: This is assusming, of course, that A-B does a good job marketing Budweiser Ale. That means a) the company doesn’t waste time wooing craft beer drinkers, who simply won’t drink it; and b) the company doesn’t try the “whassup-Spuds-McKenzieâ€? angle. Bud Ale is a different beer; the company needs to use a different approach.

Good reading all the way around. (And no, not all these folks are tofu-eating liberals.) (Frankly, I doubt any of them eat tofu.)

Frank Rich in last Sunday's New York Times.

Stanley Fish, also in the Times.

Christopher Hitchens in Slate.

Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post.

From today's Times. Nice to see a journalist place craft beer in a larger historical context -- but who knew there was a "Brooklyn boutique beer aesthetic"? Or that Brooklyn Brewery is (apparently) too big (too successful?) to embody that "aesthetic"?

Anyway -- for those who are interested.

Side note: I loved Steve Hindy's book (which he co-wrote with co-founder Tom Potter). I think it's the best book on the business of craft brewing.